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Year Two

February 28, 2013

I’m sure next year I’ll re-read this and think about how we spent that morning playing with her ukulele, listening to James Brown during breakfast and entering Day 3 of No More Bottle. A day full of things worth remembering.

It can’t possibly be a year ago that she was just getting off the bottle considering she now consumes everything from Cheerios to curry to granola bars but there it is. The uke is busted and sits behind a chair though she’s now obsessed with bongo drums. Still likes James Brown but is more into dance-pop lately (Robyn is a big favorite). She’s also got this weirdly awesome dance: moving back and forth while rhythmically bending her arms and hands. Vogue meets the Funky Chicken.

Plenty more changed in a year. We long ago lost count of Abigail’s words as mimicry gave way to sentences and context and intent. “Get UP!” she will say. Or “Take a walk” as she grabs your hand. “OK!” was a stand-in for “yes” until this week when it became “I did!” “Nay” became “Nooooo!” in a month. She now knows all her letters and can tell you her name (which has evolved from “Abby” to “Abigail” finally).

And Lord, our child is a daredevil. She wants to climb on everything. Yesterday she ran full-on through our upstairs (“I’m fast!”) and plowed straight into an Elmo-shaped plush seat which obviously couldn’t support 27 pounds of kid hurtling at 10-12 MPH and sent her head-first into the glass door of our entertainment center with a thunk. (No breakage. Thank you, Ikea. You’re tougher than you look.) I swore and scooped her up while she complained then shook it off and demanded to be set down so she could run around some more.

This year we were a little schedule-challenged – because Abigail’s parents just can’t not be busy – so we had a party for her two weeks before her actual birthday. Erin was in New Orleans for the half-marathon last week and our change in plans for the trip may have inadvertently led to a new tradition for me and AG: a father-daughter birthday trip to pick out her present. We’ll see if that holds up next year.

As for this weekend, I’m headed out of town for my traditional March guys’ weekend with friends. This year, our schedules just happened to align so my birthday weekend was the one that worked best. I’ll be home early in the afternoon on my actual birthday so I can spend it with Erin and Abigail but it’s kind of great that AG ends up spending a weekend around her birthday with one parent and the following with another. Each of us gets to be a little selfish with her.

But this morning, we played with hand stamps and dinosaurs. And tonight we had a Daniel Tiger cake together. She knew it was her birthday.

If you’ve read this far, I apologize. This post has no real agenda and nothing particular to say about where we are at two years into this whole child-rearing thing. More than anything I just wanted to make a few notes for Future Scott of 2014 who sits down to write a post then about co-celebrating his birthday and thinks “Oh man, that’s when she was in her Daniel Tiger phase.”

Tonight Erin asked me if there was anything I wanted to do on Sunday for my birthday. As I said last year, I felt like I already had my celebration.

@dbsalk: Congrats on your impending arrival! And thanks for the compliment. Fatherhood is an awesome experience, but really hard at first. (I mean, it’s hard all the time but at least after the first six months you’re getting some sleep again.)